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Barbershop Helps Those Hardest Hit By Pandemic

A Reading barbershop is offering free haircuts and food to homeless people, refugees and anyone else in financial difficulty.

Wahed Ullah who owns Diamond Scissors on Oxford Road says he wants to help people who have suffered the most during the pandemic.

Client Roberta is currently sleeping on a friend’s sofa while she seeks help to find a more permanent solution. A trip to the hair salon is a luxury she cannot afford right now. This was her first haircut in three years.

She says: “It’s absolutely fantastic, it’s actually unbelievable because no one else has offered anything else like this”.

As well as free hair cuts, the barbershop is also offering free food to those in need as well as providing them with essential toiletries.

Hundreds have so far taken up the offer and the service has now been expanded to two days a week with the help of community-based charity Sadaka.

The barbershop owner, Waheed Ullah, says: “I’ve been in my life in a hard situation and I was thinking it was my aim to help needy people. We are human beings and as humans, we have to help each other”.

One customer says: “Oh it means quite a lot to me that I’m able to come and get a free haircut, free food, have a chat, a cup of coffee.”

“You know I think a lot of people will be proud of what these people are doing for them you know.”

And paying customers agree this barbershop is a cut above the rest, with one saying: “I’m so glad I’m coming here all the time and help other people, it’s something very nice”.

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